RIAA wins second judgment: $40,000 verdict

Score one more for the RIAA. In the case against Arizona resident Jeffrey Howell, a judge has ruled for the music organization, granting them slightly more than $40,000 in damages for Howell's infringement of 42 songs, which he allegedly shared on the Kazaa file sharing network.

This case is an extremely strange one, and Howell had an even weaker defense than the other plaintiff who lost against against the RIAA, Jammie Thomas. In her case, Thomas presented only weak defenses that the infrigement could have been due to someone else (and the RIAA had strong evidence that that was not the case), but Howell actually went out of his way to look guilty: After being ordered to preserve the evidence, Howell uninstalled Kazaa, wiped his logs, then reformatted his hard drive and wiped it with a nuking program. When it came time for trial, there was no evidence left, which the judge must not have been too pleased about.

Howell also chose to defend himself in the lawsuit, saying he was unable to afford an attorney to represent him. (In a civil trial like this, the court doesn't appoint counsel.) The EFF notes in the linked story that the verdict might have been different had Howell been able to present evidence on his behalf (and, you know, not erased all the evidence).

The judge ended the case early last week and declared summary judgment against Howell. The punishment was announced today. Interestingly, Howell also gets to pay the judgment off over time, at a 2.12 percent interest rate.

LINK: Howell verdict: RIAA wins $40,850 P2P judgment